Maldives 2018 Dive trip day 1
Saturday 3rd February / Sunday 4th February
Heading out from Brighton on Rogers first foreign assignment, this time to the Maldives. Who knows where his adventures will take him next. Chris and Kirsten have already messaged to offer their assistance with the extra kit so I already knew this was going to be a great trip. Train journey went great and the first to join the group was Kirsten waiting on the platform. Chris was there somewhere too but there are 3 exits and we were at different ones! Anyway Chris soon found us at the end of the travellator. We then all took a walk toward the terminal when we were then met by Jennifer. The group was slowly taking shape……….once Chris had had his last ciggie for a few hours we went toward the check in. We were soon joined by Richard, Ian, Fiona, Alison and Natalie. There was only one left to join us now……………………..WHERE’S HAYLEY? No dramas actually she was just a few minutes behind the rest of us so while Hayley was having her last minute battle with the M23 traffic Ian, Fiona and a few others went off to get us a nice area in the lounge. Hayley was soon there and we headed through security, everything was going so smoothly. The entire group had arrived and we were all heading toward our rendezvous in the No1 lounge, North terminal.
Ian and Fiona had got us a cracking position right next to the bar so I could see what kind of trip this was going to be……………………? Especially when the bar tender offered a Champagne lager blend which was complimentary with the pass! Boarding not until 1925 so food and bar time resumed.
First group shot followed our exit from the lounge and we headed to the most enormous plane I have ever seen. We really were on our way to the Maldives. Flight arrived early at Dubai, our short stop, resulting in the longest transfer from one aircraft to another in living history……………………a 1 hour bus journey (well it felt that way!). Plus a 20minute hike through the terminal to our gate for the 2nd flight of the day. No dramas though plus they sold square doughnuts which is always a bonus! Roger had his fill of them and we were then called through for the next leg of our journey. All was going so well, what could possibly go wrong…………………….erm……………………nothing until we got to our final descent into Male! Looking at the screen our arrival time into Male all of a sudden changed from 10 minutes to 45 minutes, strange. Then came the announcement……………..”This is your Captain speaking, you may have noticed our arrival time has changed. Unfortunately the runway needs repairing before we can land as other aircraft have reported damage. Your safety is our most important consideration so we have enough fuel to stay airborne until the repairs have been completed’. In summary we circled for almost 2 hours!!!! This did mean that I could watch the end of the Muppet movie though so every cloud eh!?!?
On arrival at Male we were greeted by a very friendly Albert and his team who took us on the incredibly long transfer from terminal to port……………..literally a 200m walk across a car park and onto the Dohni. The Dohni is our dive boat or tender for the whole week. We had a short crossing of about 20 minutes until we arrived home, the MY Voyager, our luxury cruising floating hotel for a week.
Safety briefings and a delicious dinner over we all headed to our cabins to get some rest before our 6am roll call. The first dive was soon in our grasp. The real adventures start here………………………………………………………………………..